U.S. WILL ENHANCE DEALS FOR BUYERS OF S.& L. HOLDINGS

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Conceding that it has been unable to sell its growing inventory of assets taken over from failed savings and loans, the Government said today that it was giving up marketing them piecemeal and would bundle them in a new program intended to attract big investors.

The sale of these assets is supposed to hold down the already astronomical cost of the savings and loan bailout, which by some estimates could ultimately reach $500 billion over 40 years. But some lawmakers immediately criticized the new plan for terms it offers potential buyers that they said could actually increase the cost of the bailout for taxpayers.

The plan would offer new incentives to what officials called the nation's 50 to 100 most eligible investors to make bulk purchases of about $100 billion in commercial real estate, bad loans and other poor-quality assets. The Only Way Left

L. William Seidman, chairman of the Resolution Trust Corporation, which is overseeing the bailout, said the new marketing strategy was the only way left to move the assets that the Government has been unable to sell, which include marinas, uranium mines and dozens of golf courses.

"If we sold $1 million a day in these kinds of assets, I calculated that it would take us 300 years to sell them all," Mr. Seidman said. "We'll never make it by selling these things piece by piece. The only way to do it is by making large sales to large buyers."

Under the new marketing strategy, the Government would negotiate a lower down payment on any purchase and in return would receive future payments for the rest of the purchase price out of the earnings on the assets. The arrangement means that the Government would continue to be at risk if a property declined further in value, but it would benefit by managing to obtain at least a potential income when it now has none. Some Potential for Gain

"We will continue to have some risk, but we will share with the upside," said David C. Cooke, executive director of Resolution Trust, Mr. Cooke and Mr. Seidman, announced the new marketing strategy at a meeting today of the trust corporation's oversight board, which sets its policy.

Members of the oversight board include Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady; the Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Jack Kemp, and the Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan.

Asked after the meeting about the significance of the new sales campaign, Mr. Brady said: "It shows progress. People are going to be getting good deals."

Officials said the move would reduce the overall cost of the bailout by moving property out of the Government's control and thus keeping down the enormous expenses associated with maintaining them. But some critics and members of Congress said the deals would ultimately add to the costs by further reducing and deferring payments by purchasers.

'There is no certainty of payment, because payment is tied to performance," said Representative Bruce Vento, Democrat of Minnesota and chairman of a House panel that has been monitoring the bailout. "It lengthens the time of the bailout, and now the cost of it is even more uncertain." He said the new policy would be examined at a hearing next week.

The lawmakers have already criticized as giveaways deals made by previous savings regulators in 1988 to sell almost 200 savings associations. Today the lawmakers began attacking the new sales strategy as providing preferential treatment to the wealthiest investors. 'Extreme Fire Sale'

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"It's fraught with problems," said Representative Joseph P. Kennedy 2d, Democrat of Massachusetts and a member of the House Banking Committee. "It has all the markings of an extreme fire sale. The notion of selling more than $80 billion of assets and providing financing through cash flows simply delays the ultimate risks to the taxpayers."

Mr. Kennedy also objected to the idea of limiting the sales to a group of investors selected by the trust corporation. "It reeks of the potential for real abuses," he said.

Anticipating those complaints, regulators emphasized today that the plan would include only assets that the Government has been unable to sell after more than six months.

Mr. Cooke said the list of eligible investors being compiled included the largest real estate developers and investors. He declined, however, to identify any of them.

Senior officials said that three pending deals would kick off the program, but they declined to disclose details. The three deals are expected be completed in the next few weeks and to cover $1.2 billion in sales of office buildings, hotels and shopping malls around the nation. Speculation on Some Buyers

But people in the banking industry said the proposed deals are with the General Electric Capital Corporation and with two investment groups, one led by the Tishman family and the other by John Daniels, a founder of Cadillac Fairview, one of the largest Canadian real estate developers with large holdings in the United States. Cadillac Fairview was acquired by the JMB Realty Corporation of Chicago in 1987 for $4.1 billion. The New York-based Tishman Realty and Construction Company built the World Trade Center and many other landmark developments.

People involved in the three transactions said the General Electric Capital deal was for office buildings, shopping centers and industrial property valued at between $300 million and $500 million, and that the Tishman deal was for $300 million to $700 million in offices and hotels. The proposed $400 million deal being arranged with Mr. Daniels's investment group, Patriot American Investors, is said to involve office and hotel properties.

In all three of the proposed deals, officials and industry executives said most of the Government's income on the sale of the properties would come from the future earnings of the office buildings, hotels and other assets being sold. Earlier Discounts Offered

The new marketing strategy affects close to two-thirds of the Government's $162 billion in property seized from failed savings associations. It follows moves over the last year to deeply discount, and even give away, property that cannot be sold and to provide limited Government financing for buyers. The trust corporation has already announced its intention to sell most of its existing residential real estate and good loans as quickly as possible through dozens of sealed bids and auctions around the nation over the next few months.

Mr. Seidman acknowledged that those moves had had only a limited effect on the rescue effort because the continuing seizures of savings associations have rapidly increased the Government's inventory of assets at the same time that commercial real estate markets have continued to decline.

A version of this article appears in print on May 16, 1991, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: U.S. WILL ENHANCE DEALS FOR BUYERS OF S.& L. HOLDINGS. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe